A master technician in his own class

Catholic musicians are hardly. renowned for their proliferation. Thelma Hunter has had the good fortune to meet Henry Washington, pictured above with his King Charles Spaniel Lina.
A DECADE has passed since Henry Washington. KSG retired from Brampton Oratory at the end of September. 1971. He will be remembered by many as Director of Music.
There was a warm welcome waiting for me in his comfortable Tudor cottage and we delved into his long spell of activities in public life until he came to live in A mersham.
No he finds the time to read and tinker with the old clocks collected on his travels round the Oxfordshire countryside he has always loved.
"As a creative artist," he said, "I've had little interest in time it has always been difficult to keep my appointments but I have an absorbing interest in the machines that measure it.
As a well-known church musician and broadcaster he has been finding it difficult to play the organ for three of his fingers had curled up due to thickening of the tendons. However a recent operation has been successful and he has been playing the organ again.
Now, looking very young for his age, he is 77 in June, he has never been in better health.
Henry was five years with The Birmingham Photographic Society. They had rambles in beautiful Cannock Chase. His artistic bent took root in the photographic medium and he exhibited at The Royal Photographic Society in London.
On a number of occasions his pictures were included in a special selection which travelled round the 'world as an exhibition of photographic art.
After finishing his education at St Philip's Grammar School. Edgbaston, where he was born, he continued his studies at The Birmingham and Midland Institute of Music. in the period when Sir Granville Batttock was principal. Henry was looking forward to becoming an architect. but musical opportunities got there first. His father taught himself to play the organ in his thirties and it was his wish that his son should become an organist.
He was an organist at St Anne's. Bradford Street when he was sixteen years old, and eleven years later he was appointed organist and choirmaster at St Chad's Cathedral.
At this time he began his radio career, broadcasting in the Midlands, every. alternate Sunday evening. He set a method for broadcasting for which no previous model had existed and was influential in devising the form of early evening service in consultation with the BBC.
While at the Birmingham Institute, he was a pupil and cornpanion of the late H. B. Collins, the great Tudor music scholar and organist at The Edgbaston Oratory. G. D. Cunningham, Birmingham City organist at that time, also taught him.
In 1935 he left the dim Gothic atmosphere of St Chad's for the Italian Renaissance brightness of the Brompton Oratory, then the most fashionable church in London, and became the leading Catholic church musician of our time.
He was the third Director of Music since it started in 1849, taking over from Mr BarclayJones who had been there since 1893.
During his 36 years there he began a revival of classical sixteenth century polyphony and after extensive research in the Vatican archives he published a definitive edition of Palestrina's Missa Assumpta Est Maria and he became recognised as an authority on the Palestrina period.
Although the work of continental composers such as Palestrina and Victoria and even Byrd were not unknown in the Oratory musical services, these had been reserved for performances to reflect penitential atmosphere during Advent and Lent to the suppression of the sensurous glories of Mozart, Gounod and Beethoven which were the regular musical fare.
He was discouraged when the older members of the choir found it difficult to respond to his restrained and prayerful interpretation.
A performance of Palestrina's Missa Papa! Marcell( conducted by a stranger must have been a staggering blow to the fashionable congregation which had enjoyed an impassioned operatic concert.
They were not slow to express distaste of the new regime. but Henry Washington had already experienced agonies and tribulations when he took over clergy and, singers at St Chad's Cathedral five years earlier.
He had the backing here in London of the secretary of the Society of St Gregory. Donald Edeson. prominent North London Church Musician who suggested that • Henry should 'chuck out all the old ones and make a clean sweep.'
In each instance Henry chose to show patience. tolerance and charity. He wooed them rather than bullied them to accept his ideas.
In the early. sixties with his fastidiously coached choir, he had founded 20 years earlier he 'conducted The Schola Polyphonica in early Latin music for three consecutive seasons at The Royal Albert Hall Promenade Concerts during the time of Malcolm Sargent.
Henry Washington's Choir has broadcast in Music for Christmas and in Music to Remember.
The Schola Polyphonica was founded for the express purpose of broadcasting early polyphonic music. It was originally composed in part of members of the Oratory choir, entirely male, with boys from the Oratory School.
During his last five years there mature female singers were added to the boys, giving wider scope. They began with preGregorian chant, which was early Greek and ended with Renaissance.
Of the broadcasting choir. Henry said: They are all my pupils, they learned it all from me. ' He has influenced a whole generation of musicians, some of whom are well-known conductors and singers.
This choir he conducted with distinction. With shrewd judgement he kept them together during difficult times during the Second World War helped and supported by the late Father Paul Connell.
Henry Washington has had a wide-ranging and industrious life. This has included his contribution to the HMV History of Music.
He has made at least 28 different recordings. After the war, besides teaching at Aldenham School, he edited and published many masses and motets. after concentrated research at the British Museum. in the Italian archieves and at Christchurch College, Oxford. Chesters now publish many of his editions by Byrd. Palestrina, Lassus and Victoria.
The centrepiece of a Promenade Concert in 1973 at the Brompton Oratory was his Palestrina Mass, sung by the combined choirs of the Oratory and Scuola di Chiesa.
He has been extensively involved in music for television and films. Being so versatile. Henry has made many acquaintances among stars of screen and stage. This must have been in great contrast with his cloistered life in the service of church music.
Henry Washington went to Brompton Oratory in April 1935, "And so he gave 36 years of devoted service. He was made a Knight of St Gregory in 1970," said The Very Rev M Napier recently.
At the oratory they were delighted to hear that he continues to enjoy good health in his retirement: "He will always be remembered with affection at the church where he spent so much of his life."
This courteous and gentle man with a composure reflecting his inner convictions, changed the oratory liturgical music from conventional Gounod to glorious Palestrina and this has earned him the greatest respect id the Catholic world.